Chapter 16: Warrick
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Chapter 16: WarrickGrandmother asked us to spend the night, but we both had work the next day. I had a floorplan to draw up and Fox had his patients to see. He drove us back to the flat we were sharing, and I teased him by running my fingertips up the inside of his thigh, stopping just short of his crotch and the bulge I could see pushing against the front of his trousers.
“Rick,” he growled, a warning in his tone.
“Hmm?”
“You’re pressing your luck.”
“Am I?” It had been so long since I’d had someone to play with. Not since the last time Thomas and I had been together.
“My God, wait until we get home. I’m going to bugger you stupid.”
“And do you know what? I just might let you.” A sudden cold wave washed over me.
You will not!
Fox turned and gave me a quick glance, his eyes wide and his lips parted. “Really? You’ll really let me? Finally?”
“I said I might.” I forced a smile. “Let’s wait and see, shall we?”
He shifted into high gear and it was as if the car leapt forward.
I propped myself against the passenger door and watched as those elegant surgeon’s hands of his handled the steering wheel.
I found my eyes growing heavy, and I couldn’t keep them open any longer.
* * * *
That damned dream—taking out a hunting rifle and Jack, my father’s liver and white spaniel. Coming across something horrid in the woods. Fog and pain, blood and fear. Growls and subjugation.
I hadn’t had it in years, but now…
It had never changed, but for some reason, this time it had, and it was worse.
“Warrick.” Someone called my name, searching for me, someone I cared about. The beast paused in buggering me, and its growls grew even more threatening.
“Go back…” I was barely able to get the words out of a desert-dry mouth. I knew without a doubt whoever was seeking me was being sought in turn by the deadly creature of the night.
“Come on, Rick, wake up. You’re scaring me.” A hand closed over the shoulder that throbbed in time with the blood that flowed to my c**k. I reacted without thinking.
I tore at the front of my trousers, then fumbled for his. I threw myself at him and thrust against his groin, growling much as the beast had. The feel of his warm body under me proved to be too much, and I climaxed, gasping as I poured myself over his abdomen.
I sank onto him and turned my head. Air whistled between my lips as I desperately struggled to regain my breath. “Oh, Jesus, Fox, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
It wasn’t. His c**k was soft—he hadn’t been aroused in the least. I’d as good as assaulted him.
“Rick.” He forced me to look at him, his expression filled with compassion. He stroked the damp hair out of my eyes. “A bad dream?”
I pushed myself away. We were still in the car. Thank God he’d had enough time to turn off the engine before I’d attempted to savage him.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re home. Let’s go inside.”
It was awkward. I’d climaxed all over his trousers as well as mine, and they were damp.
“Rick?”
I nodded, forced myself to get out of the car, and did up my trousers while Fox did the same with his.
“It might help to talk about it.” He unlocked the door to our flat and helped me in as if I’d had too much to drink.
“I doubt it.”
“I’ve noticed something.” He locked the door behind us, managed to remove our overcoats, and directed me toward the bedroom.
“What have you noticed?” I was exhausted and didn’t really care, but I thought I’d humour him.
“You never want to change positions.” He began stripping off his clothes.
“Of course I do. We have. Missionary, doggy, on our feet, on a chair, in the bath…”
“Are you being deliberately obtuse? I meant you never give me the opportunity to have you.”
I felt awkward. He had a point. I never wanted any man’s c**k in the vicinity of my arse. “But we were going to tonight.” His words had aroused me, and on this night I’d wanted it. But then that damned dream had shattered the mood.
“Were we?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Get undressed, and I’ll give you a massage.”
I did as he said—it was one of the benefits of having a doctor as a lover. I removed my clothes and set them aside. Fox had already turned down the covers, and I sat on the edge of the bed, keeping my arsehole safe from any invaders. I kept my gaze away from him. If he was disappointed because I didn’t sprawl over the sheets, I didn’t want to see it.
He knelt up behind me on the bed and dug his fingers into the tense muscles of my neck and shoulders. I rubbed my cheek against the back of one hand. “What would I do without you?”
“You’d do fine.” He tipped my head around and brushed a soft kiss over my lips. “Is this a recurring nightmare?”
I nodded uncomfortably. I should never have brought it up, should have told him I was shell-shocked. It would have been less embarrassing.
He wrapped his arms around me. “Tell me about it,” he urged, but my mind shied away from the disturbing images, unable to face them again. Unable to reveal what my disgusting subconscious mind seemed to revel in. For a moment I was back in that nightmare, being stalked, being attacked…
“I say!” Fox shook my arm gently. “Where did you go? Come on, Warrick. Talk to me.”
He wanted to know about that nightmare. I knew it would be futile to try to avoid his questions.
“It always starts the same way,” I began hesitantly. “I’ll be trying to see Thomas, and Lady Eugenia will tell me it’s useless, to just go home, her son isn’t for me.”
“Did he really refuse to see you?”
“No,” I murmured, confused by that part of the dream. “Although it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. I’d have just barged into his room the way I did and taken up a seat at his bedside. And Lady Eugenia never knew we were lovers, either. It must be my subconscious trying to do me in. Anyway, in my dream I ride over to Fortescue Manor.”
Fox interrupted my narrative. “You didn’t drive there?” He shifted on the bed and pulled me down beside him.
“No.” I slid my arm over his chest and laid my head over his heart. The rhythmic beating soothed me. “The two properties are too close to go to the bother of taking out an automobile. We always used horses. I rode over on Monte Cristo. You know something, Fox? After all this time, it still surprises me that Father kept that horse. He was really too old to carry any of us for any length of time.”
“You don’t think Sir John kept him because he was your horse?” Fox wondered.
The thought startled me. “Father would never do that. Oh, if it was John’s, or Harry’s…”
“Why wouldn’t he do that for you? Aren’t you his son, just as much as they?”
“It’s not the same.” If I mattered that much to him, he never would have let Mother take me away. Would he? I grew uncomfortable with the conversation, and would have turned away from Fox, but he refused to let me go.
“All right. Go on with your dream.”
I was reluctant to dwell on the emotions that had haunted my sleep, the shame and the uncontrollable lust, but even less did I want to discuss my family dynamics with my lover, and so I continued, eventually concluding with the attack by the unseen creature.
I made no mention of the beast’s s****l subjugation of me.
“Well, I must say, it’s very strange.”
“Isn’t it just? One for your Sigmund Freud, one might say?”
Fox had been reading articles published by the physician who had become the leader in psychoanalysis.
“Perhaps,” he murmured. “Perhaps something in the letter you received from England set it off.”
I made a scoffing sound.
“When was the last time you had that dream?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been together a number of months now, and I don’t recall you having it or mentioning it.”
I waved a hand negligently. “Oh, it’s been some time, I assure you.”
“And yet you don’t find it coincidental that on the same day you received a letter from home you have a debilitating nightmare?”
“Hardly debilitating.”
He ground his teeth. “Warrick, you’re a maddening man.”
“But you love me anyway.”
He sucked in a breath, and I felt the colour leave my cheeks. We’d never spoken of any tender emotions. Had I given him hope for more than I could actually offer him?
“Of course I’m not serious.” I know my laugh was hollow. “We’ve hardly been together long enough—”
“Of course not.” Fox gave me another of his lopsided grins. “Go to sleep. Tomorrow will be here soon enough.”
He turned over and I pulled him back into my arms. It wasn’t long before his breathing became soft and even. Lucky man.
It was a long time before I fell asleep.
- Writer
